


Ringing in the New Year

by Stripe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4003747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stripe/pseuds/Stripe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John, Rose, Dave, and Jade are at a swanky party for New Years, but it seems they've run into a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ringing in the New Year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ivemovedondude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivemovedondude/gifts).



> This was written pretty quickly, but hopefully it's still a fun read! At the very least, all the kids kiss, just as requested.
> 
> Also, this is some sort of no-game AU where the kids are already dating as adults and Dave is a newly famous director. The details aren't super important, though, just enjoy them being dorks at each other.

This party is the fanciest event that any of them have been to by a longshot. The girls relish in it. Jade’s opted for a cute cocktail dress in her trademark green that sparkles just like the glass of champagne that she’s holding. Rose, on the other hand, has dressed herself in a long, sleek evening gown which sweeps to the floor in an elegant dark purple, matching her dark lipstick. It’s a little over dramatic for a new year’s party, but that’s just how she likes it, and she preens with all of the looks she’s attracting. 

Dave holds himself well, wearing a designer tailored suit. He’s the reason that the four of them are at this party - being the hotshot new director all the tabloids were fawning over, he was able to get his plus one turned into a plus three. 

John, on the other hand, finds himself wishing that they could have just celebrated the new year at home. He understands that these fancy functions are important for Dave to some extent - being a celebrity means that he has to stay in the public eye, because that’s part of his image. But he feels entirely out of place here - he dug out an old suit and found that he had grown an extra inch or two, because now the sleeves are too short, and he feels like his bowtie is trying to suffocate him. He doesn’t know how to talk to all of these big shots without coming off as a total nerd - he nearly started hyperventilating when he thought he saw Matthew McConaughey across the room. It turned out to just be just a convincing look alike, but all the same, he isn’t having the best time. 

He stands off to the side, a can of coke in his hand, trying to keep an eye on his three datefriends as they flit around the party. They all stop by to talk to him occasionally, but all of them have an agenda today - Rose needs a publisher for her latest book, Jade needs funding for her newest invention, and Dave just needs to make sure his face is out there. 

John’s keeping his eye on the time, which isn’t hard, given the huge digital clock that the hosts have set up on the wall. This is how he knows that it’s exactly thirty minutes to midnight when Dave swoops in with a dead serious expression and tells him, “John, we got a problem.”

John jumps. “Dave? What? Is everything OK?” Automatically, he looks over to the last two places he saw the girls - they still seem fine and happy, and Rose is still sticking to water. “What’s up?”

Dave places his hands on John’s shoulders, and John considers that he’s probably had at least one glass of champagne. “John. I need you to think about this for a moment. Really think. What’s tonight?”

John gives him a look. “...New Years Eve?” 

“Yeah, exactly. And what happens when the ball drops and everybody’s shouting ‘Happy New Year’?”

John has no idea what Dave’s trying to get at. “The year changes?”

Dave rolls his eyes. “Well. Yeah. Sure, I guess that happens, but that’s not the important part. The important thing is that it’s tradition to kiss someone to bring in the New Year.”

“People actually do that?”

Dave looks at him as though he’s grown an extra head. “Yeah. Duh. Of course they do.”

“I never have.”

“Yeah, that’s because this is the first time all four of us have been in the same place for New Years.” Dave shakes his head. “Anyways. We’re getting off track here. The point is, that’s the problem. There’s four of us. How are we going to all kiss? We tried that whole coming in at four different angles and having our lips meet in the middle, but that also left to me nearly losing an eye courtesy Jade’s glasses. We’re not repeating that situation.”

“OK, so we pair off?” John offers.

“Yeah. Pick one out of three of us to ring in the New Year with. That’s playing favorites. Besides, you know we’d all want to pick Jade.” 

Dave has a point there, John has to admit. Not that he doesn’t like kissing the blondes, because that is blatantly untrue, but Jade is simply the best kisser there is. “OK. So what do you propose?”

Dave shrugs. “I don’t know. I was hoping you’d have something.” 

John groans. “Ask the girls. They’re more creative about this stuff than me.”

“Gotcha.” At that moment, John expects Dave to leave him alone to continue moping on the sidelines, but instead, Dave grabs his hand and drags him through the party. John finds himself apologizing to the other guests as he tries to shoulder past them to keep up with Dave. It’s a matter of minutes before they’re standing in front of Rose. She raises her eyebrows slowly and takes a long sip of water.

“Well, now. What has the two of you in such a rush?” 

Dave wastes no time on filling her in. “New Years. Midnight Kiss. We need a solution, pronto.”

“Hm. I see what you mean. Quite the dilemma.” Rose taps her chin, considering this, swirling her glass of water as though it were something more sophisticated. “Ah, I think I have it.”

Dave looks excited, actually bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. He’d definitely had a bit to drink. “Well? Come on, Lalonde, lay it on us.”

“We are in the public eye, are we not? Then let’s try to be somewhat subversive. Dave, you can kiss John, and I will kiss Jade.” Rose takes a sip of her glass, looking oddly smug.

Dave leans in, and John can tell he’s squinting behind his shades. “No,” he says finally. “You’re just saying that so you get to kiss Jade. That’s not fair.” 

Rose’s smugness falls into a frown, like a child who hasn’t been allowed a second helping of dessert. “I resent that notion. My intentions are purely motivated by our public image and nothing more.” 

“No way. Either we all kiss Jade, or nobody does.”

John lets out a loud sigh, throwing his head back to make sure that the two of them actually _look_ at him. “Why don’t we just ask Jade?” he asks. “She’s smart and apparently who we are all fighting over anyways, right?”

Dave and Rose look at each other. “I guess that’s a pretty good point,” Dave says. “Let’s go track her down.”

Tracking Jade down is more difficult than expected, mostly because she moves like lightning, darting in between conversations and the snacks table like nobody’s business. Dave finally manages to corner her when she’s grabbing a handful of pigs in a blanket.

“Jade, holy hell, slow the fuck down.” Dave says, planting his hands on her shoulders, likely to keep her from darting off again. “We got a problem you need to get solving.”

Jade pops one of the treats into her mouth before she asks, “What sort of problem?”

“Midnight New Years kisses are a Thing with a capital T. But there’s four of us. How do we accomplish this?”

Jade eats another one of her pigs in a blanket, then another, pondering her answer as she chews. “Well, I’m assuming you three couldn’t agree on pairing off,” she says. “We could try the four way kissing thing again?”

“No,” Dave says.

“No,” John agrees.

“Absolutely not,” Rose adds finally. 

“Well, I thought it was fun!” Jade says with a grin. “But if you guys are sure! I guess we will just have to do six separate kisses. 

“Yeah, but that’s gonna take forever. Like, this is supposed to be a New Year’s kiss, not an elaborate make out session with all of us waiting for our turns to kiss.”

Jade rolls her eyes. “Well, we can do kisses simultaneously,” she says. “So it only comes out to three kiss periods. And we can make them special that way too! Like, if we start before the New Years, then somebody gets to be the last kiss of the old year, you can kiss somebody else as it turns to the New Year, and then a last person can be the first full kiss of the New Year!”

Dave looks at Jade as though she’s just gifted him the secrets to the universe. “Fuck. I knew there was a reason that you were a genius.”

Jade giggles. “So what do you say, everybody? Does that sound OK?”

John gives her a thumbs up. “It sounds kind of confusing, but I guess we can figure it out. We still have, what.” He glances back at the huge digital clock. “Fifteen minutes? To figure out who’s kissing who when.”

Rose smirks, taking another sip of water. “Well, then. We had better get started then, shouldn’t we?”

The four of them form a huddle for the next fifteen minutes, speaking in hushed tones, trying to figure out the order of kissing. It’s a little ridiculous - Dave and Rose argue over who gets to kiss Jade first, which results in Jade getting fed up and choosing for them, five minutes before the year is set to end. But even so, it’s the most fun that John’s had at this party so far, and he can’t stop grinning. 

But finally, the moment has come. 

The people at the party start counting down at “twenty,” which is when they decide to start their kissing. John is kissing Rose first, and her lips meet his as soon as everybody shouts “eighteen.” He just knows that her dark lipstick is going to get all over him, but he really doesn’t care, and he takes the opportunity to dip her slightly, because that’s what feels right when she’s that gorgeous dress of hers. 

He has to pull away when the other guests shout “seven!”, and he feels a little dazed. But there’s Dave, his hair slightly mussed, and John steps in to catch him in a kiss as well, just as everybody else shouts “four!” Dave’s always a little hesitant to start, and he doesn’t really get into the kiss until everybody’s shouting “Happy New Year!” Unfortunately, it’s not long after that that John has to pull away to get his final kiss of the evening.

He turns around to face Jade, who has had some of Rose’s lipstick added to her own. John has to bite back a grin, but Jade is on him before he can make a comment. She stands on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around his shoulder, tilting her head up to meet his lips as quickly as possible. She’s small and vibrant and adorable, and honestly, John doesn’t know what the other two were thinking, wanting her first. Why not save the best for last, to give themselves something to look forward to with the New Year?

Jade’s lips linger the longest, and John is reluctant to pull away, Dave pointedly clears his throat next to them, and they have to break the kiss. John glances over, and finally laughs, because Dave is just as covered in dark lipstick as the rest of them. 

“I think Rose has made her claim on us,” John says, gently touching his own own lips, knowing that they must be just as coated as the others. 

“Yeah, no kidding.” Dave’s pulled out his phone to take a look at himself, the faintest glimmer of a smirk across his lips. “Gonna have to spend a lot of time powdering my nose to look presentable again.”

“Or,” Jade offers, “we could just go home. Nobody cares if we’re covered in Rose’s lipstick then. In fact, then we could get even _more_ covered in Rose’s lipstick.”

“She raises a compelling argument,” Rose says with a sage nod. “I believe I’ve made all of the business connections I need to tonight. I am more than ready to retire with the four most gorgeous people at this party.”

“Four?” John asks, bemused.

“I am including myself, naturally.”

“Well. I think I could be persuaded to head out.” Dave cocks his head to the side, looking at John. “What do you think? All partied out yet, or you want to hang around to watch everyone _really_ get drunk?”

John laughs again. “Honestly, I think I’m going to be happy being wherever you guys are,” he says. The party seems infinitely more manageable now that the three of them are here - so long as they stayed with him, he could be here forever.

Dave just grins and nods to the door. “Then fuck it. Let’s blow this joint.”


End file.
